Brain injury takes so much from us or from clients and loved ones. On May 5th, I was listening to the radio show Q on CBC Radio 1 when Jian Ghomeshi, the host, mentioned that first-born girls are the most ambitious and likely to succeed. I guffawed. I’m a first-born girl, and I was ambitious; but back when I was in my 30s, brain injury “retired” me from society and normal ideas of success. Then I sobered up because I realized that for over a decade I hadn’t felt the kind of ambition Ghomeshi was talking about. Being a first-born girl, I know what that kind of ambition feels like. It’s eager, curious, engaged, energetic, future thinking, and present planning. What happened to it?

Is the drive to recover from brain injury, ambition? I asked myself. No, it’s desperation; it’s self-preservation. But it’s not the kind of ambition Ghomeshi mentioned. Is ambition included in brain injury recovery? I thought about how getting back into society like a normal functioning person is not only barred from us by our injury but also by the fractured and inaccessible treatment, and thus how ambition vanishes from our lives too. And so thinking about all these things, I’m inspired to make May’s #ABIchat topic on ambition. Come and join us on Twitter on Monday, May 12th!